The present invention relates to the measurement of video signals, and more particularly to the automatic measurement of video parameters in a video production environment.
The video production environment today usually involves a number of video sources, such as cameras, tapes, satellite feeds, etc., a computer environment for editing video material, and a distribution environment, such as broadcast networks, cable television, etc., as illustrated in FIG. 1. Video editing sometimes produces video signals that have characteristics incompatible with broadcasting requirements, such out-of-gamut color, excessive luminance levels, improper signal modulation range, excessive audio levels, etc. Further video editing often involves balancing for color consistency between different shots of the same video scene, either taken at different times (different lighting conditions), by different cameras (multi-camera shoots), etc. Therefore it is customary to send the results of the video editing through a video waveform monitor, such as a WFM700 Waveform Monitor manufactured by Tektronix, Inc. of Beaverton, Oreg., and/or other monitoring instruments (audio and video) before sending them on to the distribution environment. The video signal inspection process is manual and is often done by sampling rather than doing 100% testing, as the manual process is time consuming. Also in the background server application stored video may be checked in the same way prior to dissemination or when any changes are made.
Thus what is desired is automatic measurement of video parameters of video signals in a production environment that performs 100% testing with minimal time consumption.